Infiltration, Instruction, Invasion: 1 Russia’s War in the Donbass Nikolay Mitrokhin Abstract: This article surveys and analyzes the evidence on the nature of the Russian military presence and the changing composition of the “separatist” forces in the armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine throughout the period of April-August 2014. It identifies three distinct phases in the conflict, each of which was characterized by the involvement of a different set of actors and forces operating on the pro-Russian side. It argues that the available evidence demonstrates conclusively that the new “republics” in the Donbass received vital assistance from Russia in the form of military manpower and materials throughout this period, including regular soldiers sent to the region from August 2014. Introduction In late August 2014, oppositional Russian journalists and bloggers informed the citizens of their country that there was now abundant reliable evidence that Russian soldiers were fighting and dying on the territory of Ukraine.2 While Russian involvement in the 1 This text is a translated, expanded and revised version of an article previously published in Russian: “Grubye liudi”, Grani.ru, 27 August 2014; and in German: “Infiltration, Instruktion, Invasion. Russlands Krieg in der Ukraine”, Osteuropa no. 8 (2014): 3–16. A further revised and expanded Russian version is to be published in Neprikosnovennyi zapas under the title “Pochemu rossiiskie voennye pogibli v ukrainskoi stepi”. 2 The most large-scale investigations into this issue were conducted by Novaia gazeta, the Dozhd’ TV channel, and the regional newspaper Pskovskaia guberniia. For a summary, see Viktor Rezunkov, “Gorod, kotoryi zhdet grobov”, Radio Svoboda, 7 September 2014, www.svoboda.org/content/article/2657124 3.html. For a list of military units participating in the operation and general 219 220 NIKOLAY MITROKHIN hostilities in Ukraine has long been clear to informed observers, the new evidence gathered and made available within Russia has now dispelled any remaining doubts about this. In this article, I survey and analyze the available evidence on the nature of the Russian military presence and the changing composition of the “separatist” forces, with the aim of reconstructing the logic of the process whereby Russian soldiers were drawn into this war. I draw upon a range of sources, from journalistic and other civil investigations to data gathered from the separatists’ own reports and data. This evidence confirms what has been clear to many people for some time: the viability of the project aimed at creating separatist “republics” in the Donbass is dependent on the constant supply of new materials and military manpower from Russia. Furthermore, the evidence points to the fact that Russia’s reserves of “volunteers” now appear to have been exhausted. Consequently, in mid-August 2014, Russia began to send regular soldiers to Ukraine. These latest reinforcements are fighting not for ideological motivations or material incentives, but on the direct orders of their military superiors. In this article, I divide the armed conflict in the Donbass region that began in spring 2014 into three distinct phases, each of which was characterized by the involvement of different actors and forces on the pro-Russian side. The first phase began in April 2014, when special forces (spetsnaz) troops and secret service officials supported criminals from the Donbass region and Russian nationalists who had traveled in from Russia with the aim of seizing power in several cities in the Donbass region, as part of a Russian special operation aimed at destabilizing Ukraine. In the second phase, from mid-May, huge numbers of former fighters from the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and politicized supporters of statistics on known casualties, see Ivan Zhilin, “‘Yest’ informatsiia o 38 rossiiskikh voinskikh chastiakh’”, Novaia gazeta, no. 1, 12 January 2015, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/society/66773.html. The most detailed personal list of the dead as at late December 2014 is available here: “Otkrytaia Rossiia ustanavlivaet lichnosti pogibshikh iz spiska ‘Gruz-200’”, Otkrytaia Rossiia, 26 January 2015, https://openrussia.org/post/view/1772/. This article draws widely upon the research conducted by Novaia gazeta and Dozhd'. -- JSPPS 1:1 (2015) -- RUSSIA’S WAR IN THE DONBASS 221 Russian neo-imperialist organizations recruited by conscription officers in Russia streamed into Ukraine. When the Ukrainian army nonetheless managed to interrupt the supply line from Russia to Ukraine, Moscow sent in regular soldiers, in the second week of August. This marked the beginning of the third phrase. Russian regular soldiers fought back against the Ukrainian army and forced a (very fragile) ceasefire, formalized in the Minsk Protocol of 5 September. From a military perspective, this was a victory for Russia. From a political perspective, the outcome of the war remains completely open. Phase 1: “Armed Uprising” A political movement calling for the Donbass region to be annexed to the Russian Federation has existed in the region since the late 1990s. This movement was previously made up numerous small, non-influential and disparate groups with diverse ideological and cultural orientations, including Cossacks, paratroopers (desantniki), Orthodox activists, neo-Nazi-neo-pagans, and supporters of neo- fascist publicist Aleksandr Dugin.3 In March-April 2014, these ideologically motivated “separatists”, to use the Ukrainian terminology, were pushed out of the political arena by the “militia” (opolchentsy)—to use the term favored by Russian state media. In my view “pro-Russian fighters” is a more appropriate label and this is the term that I generally use in this article. These new actors who now appeared on the scene in the Donbass were largely unknown quantities, with no track record in politics or in public life more broadly. They proceeded to use violence as the primary means of solving political problems and eliminating their political opponents. In the first phase, marked by the armed seizure of power in several cities in the region from 12-20 April 2014, the pro-Russian fighters comprised several different groups. The main strike forces 3 For more detail see Nikolay Mitrokhin: “Transnationale Provokation. Russische Nationalisten in der Ukraine”, Osteuropa, 5–6 (2014): 157–174. -- JSPPS 1:1 (2015) -- 222 NIKOLAY MITROKHIN were primarily made up of gangs of minor criminals who purchased support amongst the stratum of disaffected and disadvantaged young people known colloquially as gopniki. These criminals had an interest not only in escaping prosecution by the Ukrainian authorities but also in displacing the old mafia bosses dominating the region. The billionaire Rinat Akhmetov is frequently mentioned in connection with the latter. The economic and political elite in the Donbass region, who are closely associated with Akhmetov and who formed the core support for the Party of Regions, clearly did not want the Donbass region to be annexed to Russia, as this would undoubtedly have undesirable ramifications for them, including the redistribution of assets. The lower-level ranks of the criminal and semi-criminal world, on the other hand, from gang leaders through to the corrupt militia officials linked to them at the district (raion) level, had much to gain from a radical upheaval of this kind. The example of Crimea was an influential model here. If a minor crime boss such as Sergei Aksenov (a.k.a. “Goblin”)4 could become Prime Minister of Crimea, then why shouldn’t Valerii Bolotov, who was part of the group surrounding Aleksandr Yefremov, head of the Party of Regions faction in the Ukrainian parliament, and who was in charge of overseeing the illegal mines in the Donbass region, try to become Prime Minister of the Luhansk People’s Republic?5 Why shouldn’t a minor official like Igor’ Bezler (a.k.a. “Bes”, or “Demon”), who was in charge of the burials department in the municipal administration in Gorlovka, become boss of that city of 300,000?6 And why shouldn’t Aksenov’s old school friend, the former officer and failed entrepreneur Sergei 4 “Aksenov Sergei Valer’evich (‘Goblin’). Spravka”, ORD.ua, 6 March 2014, http://ord-ua.com/2014/03/06/aksenov-sergej-valerevich-goblin-spravka_1/. All websites cited in this article were last accessed on 9 February 2015. 5 Bolotov was the initiator of the seizure of the Luhansk regional administration. See further “Kar’era terrorista Bolotova: voditel’ u Yefremova, smotriashchii za kopankami”, Informatsionnoe soprotivlenie, 12 June 2014, http://sprotyv.info/ ru/news/1112-karera-terrorista-bolotova-voditel-u-efremova-smotryashchiy-za- kopankami. 6 “Igor’ (Bes) Bezler: nachnem nastuplenie, kogda protivnik vydokhnetsia”, RIA Novosti, 16 July 2014, http://ria.ru/interview/20140716/1016094469.html. -- JSPPS 1:1 (2015) -- RUSSIA’S WAR IN THE DONBASS 223 Zdriliuk (a.k.a. “Abver”, from the German Abwehr or “defense”), be put in charge of Kramatorsk, a city with a population of 150,000?7 Other examples of lower-tier officials and criminals who rose to positions of power in this period include Vasilii Nikitin, failed entrepreneur and swindler who was LNR “prime minister” from 18 May to 7 July 2014, the first of four successive prime ministers in the space of just four and a half months.8 Information on the biography of the current head of the DNR Aleksandr Zakharchenko is especially hard to come by. We know only that having failed to complete a tertiary education course, he worked in “small business” and ran “coal industry collectives”.9 After the Maidan events, by his own account, Zakharchenko “grabbed a spade and dug up my personal machine-gun from under the flower-bed. Apart from the machine-gun I also had two pistols, a crate of grenades and a sniper’s rifle there”.10 The provenance and intended purpose of these weapons is unclear. But the rebel leaders were not all minor crime bosses and third-rank officials.